Culture

CHICAGO – Among approximately 3 million Medicare patients hospitalized for heart failure, heart attack, or pneumonia, readmissions were frequent throughout the 30 days following the hospitalization, and resulted from a wide variety of diagnoses that often differed from the cause of the index hospitalization, according to a study appearing in the January 23/30 issue of JAMA.

Following hospitalization for heart attacks, heart failure, or pneumonia, patients are at high risk of being readmitted for a broad spectrum of medical conditions in the month following hospital discharge, research at Yale School of Medicine shows. The study appears in the Jan. 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Hospital readmission has garnered significant interest from patient advocates, payers such as insurance companies, and policymakers, but neither the timing nor causes of readmissions have been well described.

Following a hospitalization, patients face many challenges as they transition home. A new study of this vulnerable period published by Yale School of Medicine researchers in JAMA found that a substantial number of patients return to the emergency department soon after leaving the hospital, and, while such patients are not usually readmitted, the study raises concerns that many more patients require acute medical care after hospital discharge than previously recognized.

NEW YORK (January 22, 2013) -- A research study of more than 600 black patients with uncontrolled hypertension found that less than half were prescribed a diuretic drug with proven benefit that costs just pennies a day, report researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York's (VNSNY) Center for Home Care Policy and Research. The researchers say these new findings should be taken as a serious wake-up call for physicians who treat black patients with hypertension.

PHILADELPHIA - Independent clinical trials, including one conducted at the Scheie Eye Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine, have reported safety and efficacy for Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a congenital form of blindness caused by mutations in a gene (RPE65) required for recycling vitamin A in the retina. Inherited retinal degenerative diseases were previously considered untreatable and incurable.

Investigators from 15 children's medical centers, including Nationwide Children's Hospital, observed and evaluated critically ill children with influenza to evaluate the relationships between levels of systemic inflammation, immune function and likelihood to die from the illness. The study appears in the January issue of Critical Care Medicine.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advocacy group recommends that physicians screen all women of childbearing age for intimate partner violence (IPV) and refer them to intervention services, if needed.

There was insufficient evidence to recommend for or against screening elderly or vulnerable adults (adults with mental or physical disabilities) for abuse and neglect.

CHICAGO – Regular aspirin use appears to be associated with an increased risk of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a leading cause of blindness in older people, and it appears to be independent of a history of cardiovascular disease and smoking, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Experts from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were among the leaders of two large national studies showing that extending CPR longer than previously thought useful saves lives in both children and adults. The research teams analyzed impact of duration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in patients who suffered cardiac arrest while hospitalized.

A purely mathematical simulation of an interfacial growth process might look like a game of Tetris but with single square blocks. These blocks fall at random into a series of adjacent columns, forming stacks.

In a Poisson process, since individual regions are independent, a tall stack is just as likely to be next to a short stack as another tall stack. Taking the top layers of the stacks as the "surface" of the system, Poisson processes produce a very rough surface, with large changes in surface height from one column to the next.

1/18/2013, Bethesda, MD. – Today, the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago released the new report, 2012 NORC Presidential Election Study: American's Views on Entitlement Reform and Health Care. Results from this survey suggest that substantial majorities of the American public prefer the status quo on most provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and on entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

First trimester abortions are just as safe when performed by trained nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse midwives as when conducted by physicians, according to a new six-year study led by UC San Francisco.

With the onset of increased health care costs due to the Affordable Care Act and the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that took abortion from being allowed on a state-by-state basis to being a federal mandate in the USA, the timing of the analysis is excellent.

Severity of emphysema, as measured by computed tomography (CT), is a strong independent predictor of all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality in ever-smokers with or without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a study from researchers in Norway. In patients with severe emphysema, airway wall thickness is also associated with mortality from respiratory causes.

SALT LAKE CITY – A simple, inexpensive blood test performed on trauma patients upon admission can help doctors easily identify patients at greatest risk of death, according to a new study by researchers at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

The Intermountain Medical Center research study of more than 9,500 patients discovered that some trauma patients are up to 58 times more likely to die than others, regardless of the severity of their original injuries.

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